LUCKNOW In a case relating to the wrongful seizure of a trader’s consignment by the Trade Tax Department, the Allahabad High Court handed down severe penalties against the authorities for harassing the traders and also awarded a cost to recover from the relevant official, people in the know said. .
In issuing its order on January 6 upon written motion, the court observed that the state government had attempted to create an atmosphere conducive to the free flow of trade and commerce so that a good business environment could be developed in the state. state of Uttar Pradesh. “But state authorities are determined to harass the state’s business community,” Judge Piyush Agrawal said in the order.
The court granted the petition with a cost of Rs. 20,000 payable to the plaintiff. “The fees will be paid within one month from today. Respondents are free to recover said cost from the offending officer,” the order reads.
“This is the second instance the department has been accused of harassing traders in less than a month,” a senior trade tax official said.
The petitioner, Surya Traders, a registered dealer in the business of selling Uncle (Sweet Supari) and Varanasi Ashik (Betel nut product) stated in the petition that in the normal course of business, 90 bags of betel nut product were sold to two different registered companies. dealers by issuing two tax invoices, were transported with the tax invoice and the electronic transport invoice to its destination.
Said goods were intercepted by agents of the Commercial Tax Department on 9.10.2019 in Varanasi. During a physical check, three bags of betel nut product were found without a tax invoice and a show cause notice was issued to the claimant. In response to the show cause notice, the claimant submitted a tax invoice issued in the name of M/s Lal Ji Pan Bhandar, Tikona Park, Nawabganj, Gonda. He further argued that said tax invoice was given to the carrier but he left it by mistake.
The applicant argued that since the value of the goods was less than ₹50,000, the e-way invoice has not been generated. He argued that with respect to the consignment of 87 bags sold to M/s Karuna Nidhan agency, he had all the required paperwork and said goods should not have been seized, and whether any discrepancy could be assigned, it should be regarding three bags only.
Permanent attorney Jagdish Prasad Mishra, who represented the department. sought to justify the contested order with its arguments, which the court refused by purchase.
The court ruled that the authorities were not justified in detaining/seizing goods and requiring security, as the documents accompanying the goods as well as those submitted with the response fully covered the transaction in question and, without effort to imagination, one could not attribute a violation to the provisions of the UP GST law or any other rule.
“As for the shipment of 87 bags, it was duly accompanied by all the proper documents prescribed by law/rule and the authorities were not justified in seizing and demanding security for the release thereof “, observed the court.
Also last month, the high court order stopped the department for arbitrarily voiding a trader’s request to register his business.
Passing an order in Ranjana Singh’s writ petition against the state tax commissioner, Allahabad High Court asked how the petitioner’s application for registration could be canceled on the grounds that he had failed to submit a legible copy of the electricity bill of his commercial premises despite its attachment to all other documents such as a copy of his Aadhaar card, PAN card etc.
The court not only awarded costs to the official concerned, but also ordered the department to make an appropriate order in the matter within a week of the court’s decision.